Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)

Data collected in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be summarized in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).
This document is similar to a nutrition label for foods, serving to effectively communicate the environmental performance of your
product to your customers.

EPDs are created according to internationally harmonized standards and are third-party verified, ensuring that the results for
your product are valid, and allowing direct comparisons to be made between your product and others in the marketplace. EPDs are
considered the gold standard in transparency.

EPD Process

Product Category Rule - Find the PCR that is most relevant to your product. If a PCR does not exist, contact a Program Operator to develop a PCR for your product type.

Life Cycle Assessment - Define the appropriate internal and external user groups, and develop a relevant goal and scope for the project. Ensure that valid and appropriate primary data are collected, and that secondary data needs are met. Conduct an LCA on your product based on collected data. If your company has already completed an LCA for your product, update the study as needed to ensure that it meets the PCR requirements.

Create, Verify, & Publish EPD - Utilize the LCA findings to develop an EPD for your product, according to ISO 14025 standard for Type III Environmental Declarations. This document will be verified and registered by a Program Operator, and will be made publicly available via the Program Operator's website.

LEED Credits

Building product manufacturers have several new opportunities to get specified by contributing more points on projects under
LEED v4. The life-cycle approach to Materials and Resources credits in LEED offer incentives for project teams to specify products
from manufacturers that provide full transparency of their product's environmental performance.

Intent: To encourage the use of products and materials for which life-cycle information is available and that
have environmentally, economically, and socially preferable life-cycle impacts. To reward project teams for selecting products from
manufacturers who have verified improved environmental life-cycle impacts.

Achieve one or more of the options below, for a maximum of 2 points.

OPTION 1. Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) (1 Point)

Use at least 20 different permanently installed products sourced from at least five different manufacturers that meet one of
the disclosure criteria below:

Product-specific declaration. Products with a publicly available, critically reviewed life-cycle assessment
conforming to ISO 14044 that have at least a cradle to gate scope are valued as one quarter (1/4) of a product for the purposes
of credit achievement calculation.

Environmental Product Declarations which conform to ISO 14025, 14040, 14044, and EN 15804 or ISO 21930 and
have at least a cradle to gate scope.

Industry-wide (generic) EPD - Products with third-party certification (Type III), including external
verification, in which the manufacturer is explicitly recognized as a participant by the program operator are valued as one half
(1/2) of a product for purposes of credit achievement calculation.

Product-specific Type III EPD - Products with third-party certification (Type III), including external
verification in which the manufacturer is explicitly recognized as the participant by the program operator are valued as one
whole product for purposes of credit achievement calculation.

OPTION 2. Multi-Attribute Optimization (1 Point)

Use products that comply with one of the criteria below for 50%, by cost, of the total value of permanently installed products
in the project. Products will be valued as below:

Third party certified products that demonstrate impact reduction below industry average in at least three of
the following categories are valued at 100% of their cost for credit achievement calculations:

Global warming potential (greenhouse gases), in CO2e

Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, in kg CFC-11

Acidification of land and water sources, in moles H+ or kg SO2

Eutrophication, in kg nitrogen or kg phosphate

Formation of tropospheric ozone, in kg NOx or kg ethene

Depletion of nonrenewable energy resources, in MJ

USGBC approved program - Products that comply with other USGBC approved multi-attribute frameworks.

For credit achievement calculation, products sourced (extracted, manufactured, purchased) within 100 miles
(160 km) of the project site are valued at 200% of their base contributing cost.

Structure and enclosure materials may not constitute more than 30% of the value of compliant building
products.

Product Category Rules

Product Category Rules (PCRs) guide the development of declarations for products that are comparable to others within a product
category. PCRs are necessary to develop an EPD. Building product manufacturers work with a Program Operator to identify an existing
PCR or to create a new PCR. The Program Operator will verify the LCA and EPD. Some product manufacturers do not have a chemist,
biologist, or industrial ecologist on staff, and must collaborate with an LCA Practitioner to develop the LCA and EPD.